CHO, R (on the application of) v Governing Body of Lonsdale School & Ors

A maintained special school’s governing body is responsible for determining the times of its sessions. A local authority’s advice and support does not make it the decision-maker. A temporary reduction in hours may be lawful where it responds to exceptional staffing and operational difficulties, rather than an attempt to cut costs, and is directed to the safe delivery of education.

For special schools, non-statutory guidance expressing an ambition for a 32.5-hour week does not impose the mainstream-school expectation. It permits regard to pupil needs, staffing, operational constraints and available resources. Structured social interaction activities linked to pupils’ EHCP outcomes may constitute a substantive educational session. The claim was not academic, but all grounds failed.

The claimant, a child with significant physical and neurological impairments attending a maintained community special school, challenged the governing body’s decision to close the school at 1.30pm on Fridays during the Autumn Term 2025. The challenge also named the local authority and the Secretary of State.

The school had previously adopted reduced Friday hours because of an unforeseen shortage of teachers and had later returned to its ordinary timetable. The claimant alleged discrimination, unlawful departure from the Secretary of State’s non-statutory guidance, breach of the Education (School Day and School Year) (England) Regulations 1999, and failure to provide a substantive afternoon session. The court first considered whether the claim had become academic and then determined the five grounds.

1. Disposition. Permission was granted because the claim was not clearly unarguable without the defendants’ full evidential response. The claim was nevertheless dismissed.
2. Decision-maker and reasons. Under section 32(1)(b) of the Education Act 2002, the governing body, not the local authority, determines the times of the school’s sessions. The local authority’s advice and support did not confer jurisdiction over that decision. On the facts, the governing body made the decision. The operative reason was an exceptional and continuing shortage of suitably trained teaching staff, not cost-cutting.
3. Academic claim. The return to ordinary hours did not remove the live dispute. The claimant continued to seek declaratory relief and just satisfaction, and remained concerned about recurrence. The claim therefore retained a lis directly affecting the parties’ rights and obligations.
4. Guidance. The guidance imposed a 32.5-hour expectation on mainstream schools but only an overall ambition for specialist settings. It did not address the temporary reduction of hours in response to staffing shortages. Special schools may consider pupil needs together with operational, staffing and financial constraints. The school had taken the guidance into account and had not unlawfully departed from it.
5. Discrimination. The discrimination grounds depended on the incorrect premises that the local authority had made or authorised the decision and that it had been taken to cut costs. Those premises failed. The guidance was not unlawfully discriminatory because mainstream and special schools were not in an equivalent position and the flexibility afforded to special schools was rationally connected to their diverse needs and operational circumstances.
6. Sessions and educational provision. A session requires meaningful education but need not consist of classroom teaching or have a prescribed or equal duration. In special educational provision, structured activities directed to EHCP outcomes and monitored through targets may constitute a substantive high-quality session. The school’s Friday social interaction time therefore satisfied regulation 3(1) and the guidance.
7. Alternative ground. Alternatively, the staffing crisis constituted exceptional circumstances making it undesirable to provide the ordinary Friday afternoon session. The regulation 3(3) exception did not need to be relied upon.